


Now I'm Thinking

by brassmama



Series: Closer 'verse [1]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Ambiguous Marvel Canon, But also, Established Relationship, Get Together, M/M, POV Outsider, it's complicated - Freeform, sort of, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 08:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3685851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brassmama/pseuds/brassmama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint owned a coffee shop. He wasn't really prepared to deal with waking up in a world where he's a super hero, or where he's married to the hot guy who owns the comic shop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now I'm Thinking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ralkana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ralkana/gifts).



> This was started as a gift for ralkana back in October because she'd had a crap day at work. And then my one shot took off to be ten pages of fic.
> 
> Thanks to ereshai for the beta job. Any remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title snagged from "Closer" by The Tiny, mostly because I needed a title.

Yesterday, ugh _yesterday_ , Clint had spent almost eight hours on his feet behind the counter. He was going to have to look at hiring someone to help cover the hours Kate was going to be in class. He had definitely been taking her for granted this past year. He knew how hard she worked and he paid her as much as he could afford to, but actually having to work a shift without her or Cassie had been rough. He’d just about cried when Cassie had finally arrived at two o’clock to help with the afternoon rush.

So, Clint really didn’t want to get out of his nice, warm, comfy bed when the alarm started going off. He was dead on his feet, and it must be carrying over because his bed wasn’t actually this comfortable (for now - he was saving up for a new mattress soon). Though, something might be wrong with the alarm; that wasn’t the right sound and the pillow piece wasn’t vibrating. Or Lucky had knocked it off the nightstand when he’d jumped up and joined Clint in bed last night. Stupid dog. The beeping cut off without Clint hitting the snooze. Dammit, it really was broken then.

And then the other side of the mattress shifted, way more than Lucky would account for, and suddenly Phil was saying to him, “Come on, Clint, time to get up.”

What. The. Fuck.

Phil, cute Phil who owned and ran the comic book store across the street, who ordered the same drink every time he came in. Phil who Clint had a huge crush on, who Kate had been trying to set up with him since she’d figured it out. How and why the hell was Phil in his bed?

“Clint?”

Also, had Clint forgotten to take out his hearing aids last night during whatever had led to him being in bed with Phil?

Phil walked around the bed, looking concerned.

Clint was quickly realising that he was actually not in his bed, but what was probably Phil’s. Something was definitely wrong.

“Something is definitely wrong.” Clint sat up, looking around and checking that no, he wasn’t wearing his hearing aids, which okay, what the fuck? “What the futz is going on?”

Phil asked, visibly stiffening, “Clint, do you remember where you are? Or the date?”

Had he hit his head yesterday? He actually didn’t have the clearest memory of going to bed, but he’d been so tired.

“Uh, the seventh? Eighth, the seventh was yesterday.” _I’m in your apartment?_ He signed the last. Clint felt his scalp. Yeah, those were staples in his hairline. “I don’t remember hitting my head.”

Phil reached into the nightstand and pulled out an honest to god penlight and shined it in Clint’s eyes. Clint remembered Phil mentioning being in the Rangers, so maybe that’s how he knew to check for concussion symptoms. Phil’s brows furrowed more. “That’s the date. Your eyes are dilating fine. What’s the last thing you do remember?”

“Going to bed last night. In my bed, though.” _Not here._ “How did I get here? Shouldn’t I be in a hospital if I hit my head?” Clint tried to get up, but Phil put his hand on Clint’s chest, pushing him back down with surprising firmness. “What time is it? Did I call Kate to watch the store? Shit, she has class. Maybe Cassie-?”

“What store? Who’s Kate?” Phil was terrible when he looked confused. Terribly cute. But totally not the problem here.

“My store. Arrowmatic? The coffee shop I own? And you know Kate. Black hair, snarks at me, spoiled rotten, steals my dog.” Clint was feeling confused now. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head, too? And what about your shop? Is Jasper covering today or something?”

“Clint, I don’t…” Phil shook his head, “Clint, I’m going to call medical. You’re right. Something is definitely wrong.” Phil grabbed a shirt off the end of the bed (and oh, Phil wasn’t wearing a shirt and god, he did have gorgeous arms -another oddity because he’d seen Phil in t-shirts before. He was fit, but he never seemed that fit. But maybe it was just being amplified by Phil’s half-nakedness?) He left the room, popping his head back in the doorway to say, “Stay there, please.” His tone was a bit pleading, as if he doubted Clint would.

Clint didn’t want to be left alone in Phil’s bed. Phil left, and Clint could hear him talking quietly on the phone. Clint sat up and realised he was wearing someone else’s clothes. The shirt was soft and purple, something that he would definitely buy if he saw it on sale, and the bottoms had a purple arrows pattern. They looked more like something Kate would own. The room wasn’t exactly what he’d expected Phil’s bedroom to look like, less Captain America posters. But maybe he’d hung them in another room.

Hearing that the conversation in the other room was over, Clint got up (and if he had any sort of serious-memory-loss -causing head injury, shouldn’t he have felt dizzy?) and walked out to find Phil before he could be made to lie back down. Hanging on the wall across from the bedroom door was about a dozen framed photos. Clint saw a picture of Phil and his mother at what was either Phil’s high school or college graduation- where were his sisters? And his dad? There was a picture of Phil in the Rangers with a black man who Clint would guess was the fabled Marcus. Phil talked about him quite a bit but Clint had yet to actually meet the man. Some more childhood photos. Finally one of a very young Phil with his dad. Clint smiled. They were standing in the back of a bright blue pick up truck holding up fish. There was another picture of Phil and Marcus and... Jasper?

Clint leaned in to get a closer look at the photo. It was definitely Jasper Sitwell, one of Phil’s friends who often worked in the comic store when Phil was sick or had headed off to Comic Con in the summer. But the three of them were in suits at someone’s wedding, maybe? And Marcus had an eye patch in this photo.

Weird. Jasper had told Clint he’d never met Marcus either.

From the sounds in the kitchen, Phil was making coffee, so Clint stepped back, turning toward the noise. And then one photo caught his eyes. It was Phil kissing… Clint?! They were both in suits, Phil in the same suit as in the previous photo, and it was clearly their wedding. Clint saw Marcus and Jasper standing on Phil’s side of the alter with Natalia and Sam standing for Clint.

Had he fallen into one of those cheesy romcoms where the lead forgets their entire life? But he wasn’t much older than in the photo and he’d known the date? What the hell was going on?

“What the futz is this?”

Phil had been slumped at the breakfast bar, head in his hands, and he flinched away from the sound as Clint half shouted. He looked up at Clint, and the look that passed over his face was… complicated. Fear, and worry, and sadness, and loss.

“It’s our wedding,” Phil croaked out. “Clint, don’t you remember?” He shook his head. “Natasha’s coming to take us to headquarters. We’ll figure this out.”

“Figure what out? That I apparently am losing my mind here? And what headquarters? I’m not going anywhere!”

And Clint was not. He was starting to feel less like he was in a romantic movie and more like he was trapped in a horror flick. Maybe Phil was actually some crazy serial killer and the photos had been photoshopped. Or he was just suffering some major retrograde amnesia. Like, really weird and selective amnesia with some hallucinated past thrown in for good measure. Or this is the Matrix and there was a reset. Clint could feel his breath quicken.

“Clint, please, calm down.” Phil placed a hand on Clint’s shoulder, and Clint almost let it stay there. Phil was probably right about needing to calm down, but there was a photo of them married when they hadn’t even gone on a date yet. He shook the hand off. Phil’s face fell even more.

There was a stool, and Clint slumped on to it and signed, _Not calm. Crazy maybe._

Phil looked at him, worried but lacking understanding. Which, again, just didn’t line up with what he knew of Phil. Phil knew sign and it actually had been the reason he’d first talked to Clint after Arrowmatic had opened its doors. Phil’s youngest sister was Deaf. He’d started laughing at Clint’s scathing conversation with Kate about a rude customer.

“Clint, I don’t know what that means.”

“Yes, you do know what this means. If you don’t know what it means, then I’m in some bizarro world where I apparently don’t have hearing aids, and we skipped dating straight to being married, and you don’t have a huge boyhood crush on Captain America!”

Phil stared at Clint some more. “Clint, yesterday, during the mission, you didn’t touch the Artifact, did you?”

“What?” Clint stuttered out, there was so much to parse from that sentence,”Wha.. what fucking artifact?”

* * *

Clint sat across from Phil, seriously pondering when his life became an episode of _Doctor Who_ (which was apparently a thing here still). But this Phil wasn’t the same Phil Clint knew.

His Phil -hah, Clint wishes- wouldn’t be caught dead in a full suit and tie, though maybe he should at least try it sometime. He wears superhero t-shirts on weekends, and button ups during the week. He takes his coffee black with double sugar and a blueberry muffin. He has two younger sisters and half a dozen nephews and nieces. That Phil is not to be found in the face of the man interviewing ~~interrogating~~ Clint. The man whose bed Clint had woken up in this morning.

It had been pretty confusing and then terrifying when Clint’s half stuttered questions had resulted in this Phil calling someone, which then resulted in a group of black clad people -agents, this Phil had called them agents- showing up and escorting Clint to a towering building and leaving him in a bare room for about an hour. Then Phil had come back and started asking him questions about Hydra and AIM and fucking AVENGERS before seeming to finally believe Clint’s repeated claim that he wasn’t a spy or a robot or an alien. Clint wasn’t putting ‘not in Kansas anymore’ off the table. Hell, he’d seen Natalia in the hallway. Next he’d see Sam Wilson as a scarecrow and he wouldn’t even be shocked.

"Best we can tell," Phil was trying to be reassuring, "this universe’s Clint Barton was exposed to an artifact yesterday that has swapped your consciousness with his. One of our team is looking into a way to reverse it."

It wasn’t working; Clint was not feeling reassured. He rubbed his hand across his face and then pinched the bridge of his nose. This Clint had weird calluses on his hands.

"So, you and me are like…” Clint floundered for words. He was going to never be able to look at Phil again, but he needed to know.

“Secret agents and, at least for you, a superhero.” Phil nodded, because clearly that was the biggest issue Clint might be having with the situation.

Except it obviously wasn’t, it was the whole Clint and Phil being married thing.

Clint paused that line of thought, realizing that no, that probably still should be the biggest issue here. Kate alway told him he had warped priorities.

Phil, being familiar with his husband’s facial expression, and thus Clint’s, continued, “Barton and I have been married for three years, together for eight.” Phil’s expression was pinched, and the tone sounded somewhat chastising, as if some part of the information was oft repeated or discuss. “We are very much in love.”

“I’m sorry; I am trying to wrap my head around this. Mostly the us being together part, which I fully understand isn’t actually a larger issue than I’ve-been-mind-swapped-to-another-dimension and… Other me isn’t going to like stab anyone or anything is he?” Clint couldn’t actually imagine any way that he’d be the random stabbing type, but hey, he was married to Phil, so things aren’t entirely within the realm of his imagination. Kate wasn’t going to let him live this down; she would use it as ammunition to egg him on to ask Phil-his-Phil out.

“Oh, shit, Kate.” The sudden rush of anxiety and horror and just sick to his stomach feeling forced his thoughts out into the open. “I was joking about the stabbing thing, but seriously, I’m not like super jumpy or homicidal here, right? Because Kate will probably show up to drag me out of bed if I’m not at work, and feed the dog, and here-me isn’t like scared of dogs right ‘cuz Lucky wouldn’t hurt a fly, well unless the fly was trying to force my tenants out of the building again by shooting out my windows and oh god shut me up now and tell me I’m wrong.”

Phil stared at him, eyes widening toward the end. “Someone shot out your windows?” He was alarmed by half.

“Uh, yeah. It’s a long story, but seriously, seriously, about other me?” Clint put his head down on the table, gripping his wrist to ground himself.

Phil shook his head, “Barton isn’t likely to attack civilians and honestly the only reason we don’t have a dog is that we’re never home. I’m sure both your dog and your friend are safe.”

* * *

Clint Barton, Avenging Archer, woke up to slobber on his face. Not even the nice kind, the kind that meant Phil was back from his morning run and wanted to work off some more energy with sleepy, doesn’t-actually-want-to-ever-leave-this-bed- again-ever, pre-coffee and pre-jacking-off-in-the-shower Clint. No, this was definitely dog slobber. Gross, gross, GROSS!

_What?_

* * *

Shortly after Clint was done being assured (FINALLY) that Kate wasn’t going to get hurt by his other self, a man who definitely _looked_ like Tony Stark, of Stark Industry fame, opened the door and startled rattle off nonsense about something to do with quantum physics and entanglement. Phil put a hand up. “In language someone without a Doctorate in physics can understand, please, Tony?”

Oh shit, it is Tony fucking Stark. Clint quietly tried not to fanboy too much. He was a big fan of everything Stark tech related. Basically attended every talk the man has given within 100 miles of Clint’s shop.

“The bowl thing, that Clint touched-”

“That you knocked him into?”

“I barely nudged him, Phil, I swear, and it was Captain Butterfingers making moon eyes at Fly Boy that caused the whole incident. Not. My. Fault.”

“Fine, the bowl?”

“It catches a very specific type of energy, and because I watched that terrible movie adaptation last night, I’m gonna call it Dust because it’s causing tiny rips in the fabric keeping our dimension separate from the next dozen over. It’s super fascinating, actually, because it shouldn’t be possible because-”

“Save it for Foster, Tony.” Phil put his hand back up again. “Can you reverse it?”

“Short answer? Yes.”

“Medium answer?”

“Yes, but it might take a few days while I match the energy lingering on Clint to the, uh, Dust Motes, let’s call them Dust Motes -much cooler than portals, since we don’t want to switch him with the wrong Clint. Or with a Clint that doesn’t exist. Or is de- Yeah, it is gonna take a little, but it’ll be faster once Jane gets here. Thor was suggesting bringing Clint to a Soulforge in Asgard, but I don’t know if you-know-who’d really feel comfortable with him being off-world.” Tony paused to breathe.

Phil spoke first, cutting him off. “That sounds fine. I’ll make arrangements for the next… week?”

Tony shrugged then nodded, “Probably less, but sure, just in case.” And then he whirled back out of the room.

Phil rubbed a hand at his forehead, something Clint recognized from his-not-his-Phil as a sign of stress.

Clint elected to distract him, and since there weren’t any blueberry muffins on hand, he chose the next best thing. “Was that really Tony Stark? I know Tony Stark? As in the Starkpad, and like everything awesome in electronics for the last ten years?”

“Starkpad?” Phil’s brow did the furrow-y thing again, “Please don’t mention that to him. At least not until he gets some sleep. He was already up all last night.”

“You don’t have Starkpads? Now I have to tell him.” At Phil’s warning look, “But later, definitely later.”

And then Clint’s stomach grumbled and he was reminded he hadn’t had the appetite to eat anything this morning.

Phil heard it, too. “Since we’re sure you aren’t evil, how about lunch?”

Clint laughed, “Oh how the tables have turned, huh?” And then, Clint realized that he was mixing up his Phils again. “I mean, I usually have to go harass Phil to eat lunch, because he literally spends all his time in his comic book store either talking to people about comics, or reading comics. Not that you don’t probably usually eat lunch without having to be dragged away from superhero-ing.”

Phil huffed an almost chuckle. “Clint and I police each other. If I let him, he’d be at the range through his lunch. And if I wasn’t reminding him to eat, I’d be filing paperwork or chatting with R&D or something ‘work-related’ during mine.” He smiled a moment, before faltering. Probably remembering that his Clint wasn’t the one in the room with him..

“So, is there a stocked kitchen somewhere, or are we going out?”

* * *

 

Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye aka Ronin aka Goliath aka Captain America (it was for like three hours, it totally counts), couldn’t for the life of him handle an espresso machine. He complained to Tony at length about the coffee pot being too complicated. About three hours after he woke up in _NOT HIS AND PHIL’S APARTMENT_ , he decided he needed coffee to deal with whatever the hell was going on. But whoever’s home this was only had this machine that didn’t even have an instruction book. When he was ready to go back to hugging the dog, who was named Lucky and had one eye and was great at being hugged while Clint quietly freaked out, a black haired Asian girl had shown up.

She’d opened the door with a key, and started lecturing, “I thought we’d discussed this, Clint. You can’t just take mental health mornings without minimum notice. I completely understand that you have those days that you can’t bring yourself to get out of bed until four, but I was in class when Cassie called. If you’d called me this morning, I could have called America and asked her to cover, or hell I could have called Teddy. But you cannot just drop off the face of the earth for a morning and leave Cassie to deal with Hank fucking Pym by herself.” She made sure to face him through all of this.

She paused in her speech, to grab the coffee grounds and work the gigantic contraption on the counter to produce coffee. And then sip it, and then glare at Clint.

“I will text you every morning for the next week if you need me to. It’s not a problem for me, I can do that for you, bossman.”

Clint felt confused and just stared at her, and then at her cup because that smelled amazing.

“I don’t actually know where to start here, because I am still coping with having hearing aids, but I feel like I can trust you to help me figure some stuff out. Can you make me a cup, because I cannot for the life of me work an espresso machine?”

* * *

Clint made coffee with the clearly loved espresso machine in the kitchen. Phil had led him up here, saying it was the communal kitchen. Apparently this was Stark/Avengers Tower, where all the superheroes -sans Clint and Phil because reasons- lived most of the time. Clint took some solace in the control he could find making the drink. It was familiar and he knew it’d be delicious.

When they’d arrived, three men, two black and one white, had been clustered in front of a television. All of them had stopped watching the program -was that Duck Dynasty?- and turned to greet them. And, now that they were all facing Clint, he could see that one of the men was Sam. Not dress as a scarecrow, so that’s a relief.

“Hey, Phil!” The tallest and broadest and blondest man Clint had ever seen stood and walked to join them. His named was Steve, and he was, _oh my god_ , Captain America! Clint couldn’t wait to tell Phil. Clint tried to cover his returned nerves by foraging around for the coffee beans.

Sam had chimed in, “The beans are on top of the fridge. Grinders in the cabinet below the espresso.” Clint had waved his thanks. He was now finishing combining the steamed milk and espresso shot. It looked perfect. If he had raspberry syrup it would be divine, but he could live with perfect.

Clint turned and saw Phil, Steve, Sam, and the third man sitting at the bar. Phil had been filling them in on whatever Tony had been talking about earlier. Sam was leaning against Steve, arm draped across his back. Clint wondered if this Sam was dating Captain America. If he was, it was going on Clint’s mental list of things to tell people if he could. Sam pulled away from the group and came over to where Clint was finishing his drink.

“It is so weird seeing you use that. Barton complains about the coffee maker being too complicated.” He was laughing.

“I own a coffee shop, actually. This I could do in my sleep. Regularly do it half asleep.” Clint smirked.

The man walked over, and held out a hand. “Sam Wilson, aka Falcon.”

Clint returned the handshake, “Yeah, I know you. Sort of. The Sam I know works as a therapist. ”

Sam laughed. “I do that sometimes. Come over. I heard you kinda got excited about meeting Stark. I’m gonna introduce you to King T’challa.”

“King?”

* * *

Tony finally found the right portal -“We’re not calling them Dust Motes, Tony.” Dr. Jane Foster had shot the idea down immediately- to switch Clint home, after four days.

In that time, Clint had spent most of that time as close to the espresso machine as possible. It was easy to get people to ignore him if he just made coffee for everyone. It was almost like being at work, except he didn’t know most of these people. Natasha wasn’t at all like Natalia, which just made him spend all the time he wasn’t making coffee with Phil. This Phil wasn’t exactly the Phil he knew, but he was by far was the closest to what he knew.

So, after days spending a good chunk of his time with Phil, Clint was almost sorry to leave. Phil was super sweet really, when he wasn’t angsting over Clint not being _his_ Clint, and he’d absentmindedly kissed Clint’s head one morning after a run. That had been nice. Awkward and mildly mortifying, but nice.

Clint wanted his Phil to actually be HIS. Well, if the man would say yes. And Clint was definitely going to ask his Phil out. He meant it this time.

Tony was settling some weird looking instruments over the bowl that had cause this mess. Any time now, Clint was going home. He turned to Phil. “Thanks for the last few days. I know this is gonna sound kinda weird, but it gave me some perspective and shit.”

“I’m glad.” Phil nodded.

Tony waved at Clint. “Come over here and sit down. Time to start. I’m sure Phil wants his husband back.”

The words were light, but stung a little. Clint shrugged them off as much as he could because he was going to try and get something like this with his Phil. And he had lots of faith he wouldn’t fuck it up, judging by some of the truly horrible stories Phil had told him about his adventures as a superhero.

Clint sat on a chair, mostly, according to Tony, so he couldn’t fall down during whatever it was the man was doing.

After that, his perception skewed and suddenly the Iron Man armor that had been sitting around looked like the grill on Clint's roof.

\---

Clint Barton was sitting on a lawn chair when the world started to look weird. Like the grill morphed into the Iron Man armor and he started hearing Tony’s voice.

“Tony?”

He looked toward the voice, toward the dog, and saw Tony hunched over the coffee table.

\---

Clint sat up straight because he hadn’t said that. But it was his voice.

“Something feeling weird, coffee-omatic?”

Clint looked toward Tony, and saw the words coming out of… Lucky. “I didn’t say that, Stark? And you look like my dog, right now.”

Tony/Lucky nodded. “Okay, that’s weird, but I think that good. I’m going to increase to 50% and you should be switched back soon.”

* * *

Ten minutes of overlapping perception and worry later, Clint was sitting on the roof of his building, no longer seeing Steve Rogers standing in midair.

Tony had told him not to get up for another five minutes once the switch was complete, but Clint couldn’t wait.

He launched up out of the chair and nearly ran right into Kate. “Kate! You’re not stabbed or anything!”

“What? Clint?” Kate jolted back out his space, “Why would I be stabbed?”

“Because I got switched with superspy me. And I didn’t think you would be, just was worried. But I gotta go talk to Phil.”

He rushed by before Kate could stop him. Down the ridiculous number of stairs and over to the comic store. Phil was just starting to close up shop.

“Hey, Phil, will you go out on a date with me?”

Phil stared at him a moment, “Does this mean you and superhero you got switched back?”

Clint laughed, “He told you guys about it?”

“No, Kate did. She was coming to remind me to eat. Also that apparently this super hero you and that version of me were married.”

“Yes, and it was kind great seeming and maybe not marriage yet, but will you date me?” Clint leaned against the counter.

“How’s Thursday night, dinner and a movie?” Phil leaned from his side.

“Is that a yes?”

“That’s a yes.”

 


End file.
